The Macchiaioli: 11 Effect and Expression in Nineteenth-Century Florentine Painting* J • I l NORMA F. BROUDE In 1855, the Italian artists Domenico Morelli, Saverio Alta­ attracted them in 1855 to the relatively conservative French mura, and Serafino De Tivoli visited Paris to see the World's painters cited above or, indeed, to isolate any corresponding Fair. They returned to Italy with descriptions of the "violent tendency in the contemporary art of France that could have • chiaroscuro" that they had seen and admired in the paintings provided their inspiration. There is considerable reason to of Decamps, Troyon, and Rosa Bonheur, and it was upon the believe, in fact, that the current conception of the macchia is basis of th~ir reports that a number of their friends-the art­ incorrect and unfounded, and that to recover its original mean­ ists who gathered at the Caffe Michelangiolo in Florence-be­ ing we must turn to the sources of the aesthetic in French gan to experiment and to evolve for themselves the aesthetic Romanticism. idea which they called the macchia. The word macchia, a word with a time-honored tradition in The- idea that the word macchia, for the Macchiaioli, re­ the literature of Italian art history and criticism,2 lends itself ferred originally to a mode of sketchlike execution has been to a variety of constructions, among them "sketch" and fostered in our century by the increasing popularity of a cer­ "patch,"3 and it was precisely because of these multiple mean­ tain group of these artists' works-their plein air studies­ ings that the name derived from the word was seized upon in and by the stylistic qualities which these studies display. These the early 1860's by the conservative press in Florence and ap­ striking works, upon which the reputation of the Macchiaioli plied in derision to this progressive group of artists. Though today largely rests,5 are small, broadly conceived, and freshly originally popularized by a hostile critic, the name was to gain executed in terms of vivid and emphatic tonal oppositions. Il­ wide acceptance, even among the artists themselves. Today, it lustrated here are two well-known examples of the type: Gio­ is commonly understood as a description of the group's pro­ vanni Fattori's French Soldiers (Fig. 1), a record of the artist's gram and style, and the "Macchiaioli" are known, accordingly, observations of the soldiers quartered on the outskirts of as artists "whose procedure, as their name implies, was to Florence in 1859, and Giuseppe Abbati's Cloister (Fig. 2), paint in 'patches' or 'blobs' of color."4 painted in Florence, in the cloister of Santa Croce, around In view of the circumstances surrounding the group's for­ 1862. Executed on small panels, the first, typically, of wood, mation, this prevailing characterization seems puzzling and the second of cardboard, both were inspired by the artists' inappropriate. For if the Macchiaioli are to be approached as immediate visual experiences of the natural world and display artists who were committed to a procedure of painting in a concern for the effects of strong sunlight upon form and "patches," it becomes impossible to explain what might have color. In both, the mode .of execution employed is clearly re- * This article presents the substance of several chapters from a dis­ piu eccellenti pittori . .. , ed. Milanesi, Florence, 1878-85, vn, 452). sertation prepared in the Department of Ar.t History and Archaeology 3 According to a dictionary published in 1852, the word macchia could at Columbia University, directed by Professor Theodore Reff, and be interpreted variously as spot or stain, sketch (abbozzo) or brush­ undertaken with the assistance of a departmental Summer Travel land (boscaglia). The meaning of the word in relation to painting is Grant (1964) and a Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellowship (1965- explained as follows: "I pi ttori usano questa voce per esprimere Ia 66). qualita d'alcuni disegni, ed alcuna volta anche Pitture fatte con Among those who assisted me during the course of my work, I istraordinario facilita e con un tale accordamento e freschezza senza should like to express my gratitude in particular to Signor Lamberto molta matita o colore, e in tal modo che quasi pare-che ella non da Vitali of Milan for facilitating my research by generously helping to mano d'artefice· rna da per se stessa sia apparita sui foglio o sulla tela make available to me several important collections of pictures and e dicono: 'Questa e una bella macchia.' " The same dictionary defines documents. the word Macchiajuolo as "one who removes stains" or "one who 1 This report of the events surrounding the birth of the movement ap­ frequents the brushlands" ("Colui che esercita l'arte di cavar Ie pears in several reliable witness accounts. See T. Signorini, "Cose macchie.-Che frequenta le macchie, doe le boscaglie."-Vocabo­ d'arte," II Risorgimento, 1874, in E. Seman~, Telemaco Signorini, lario universale della lingua italiana, Mantua, v, 1852, 8.) Milan, 1926, 256; C. Boito, Scultura e pittura d'oggi, Turin, 1877, 4 R. Skira-Venturi, Italian Painting from Caravaggio to Modigliani, 208-09; T. Signorini, Caricaturisti e caricaturati a! Caffe Michel­ New York, 1952, 113. angiolo, Florence, 1952, 88 (1st ed., Florence, 1893); D. Martelli, "Ro­ 5 The centenary exhibition of the Macchiaioli, held in 1956 at the Gal­ manticismo e realismo nelle arti rappresentative," ll Carriere Italiano, lery of Modern Art in Rome, was purposely limited to the exhibition Feb. 21, 1895, in Scritti d'arte di Diego Martelli, ed. A. Boschetto, of only such works, in order, so the catalogue stated, that the public Florence, 1952, 204. might be presented with the best and most characteristic examples of 2 Vasari uses it in connection with the late work of Titian (Le vite de' Macchiaioli painting (P. Bucarelli, I Macchiaioli, Rome, 1956, 22-23). 12 The Art Bulletin ductive, with f~rm, "patch"-like strokes defining the forms and the artist as a leading exponent of the new movement in paint­ creating a flatness of design that characterizes the plein air ing and who criticized him for daring to display to the public, studies of all the artists associated with this group. "in an embryonic state," a work which "might be described as The seemingly patchlike mode of execution which has been no more than a simple sketch."7 observed in the plein air studies of the Macchiaioli, however, When we understand, however, which paintings caused the does not account for the name that was applied to the group controversy and criticism that originally surrounded the Mac­ nor really serve to explain its aesthetic. A crucial fact, too often chiaioli, the substance of these contemporary criticisms be­ overlooked in modern scholarship, is that during the nine­ comes meaningful despite apparent contradictions, and the . teenth century these studies were entirely unknown outside real basis upon which they were made becomes easier to detect. ,. the artists' immediate circle and were not themselves responsi­ The most interesting and fruitful of our documentary sources ble for the controversies which the macchia initially provoked. in this respect is an article which appeared on November 3, p As the catalogues of the exhibitions in which the Macchiaioli 1862, in the Florentine journal Gazzetta del Popolo, by a participated make clear, these were not the works which the journalist who signed himself "Luigi."8 A caustic attack upon Macchiaioli chose to send to public exhibitions, there to be the tendencies of certain of the artists whose works were discussed and attacked as the characteristic product of their currently on exhibit at the annual Promotrice, the article was aesthetic.6 Instead, the works which nineteenth-century crit­ conceived in response to a review of the exhibition published ics angrily condemned as "sketch"-like and "unfinished" were, anonymously some two weeks earlier by one of the artists, in fact, according to the testimony of the catalogues, fairly elab­ Telemaco Signorini.9 About these young artists, the most radi­ orate studio pieces which in most cases offer to the modern eye cal of whom he identified as Vincenzo Cabianca and the above­ little that might distinguish them from the more orthodox and named Signorini, the critic of the Gazzetta del Popolo wrote: acceptable academic productions of their day. Presenting a striking contrast to the richly stroked, flattened surfaces of For some time, there has been talk among artists of a new school the studies, these lesser-known works of the Macchiaioli (of which has grown up and which has been called the school of the Macchiaioli. The painting of this school has made its appearance which, nevertheless, a sizable body is extant) are relatively frequently in the exhibitions of the Society for the Promotion of large, dryly executed paintings, tightly descriptive or anec­ the Arts, and this year, too, it is well represented. But, the reader dotal in character. As examples we may cite still other works will say, if he himself is not an prtist, what are these Macchiaioli? of Fattori and Abbati, Fattori's Cavalry Charge at Montebello Permit me to explain. They are young artists, some of whom are of 1862 (Fig. 3) and Abbati's Cloister of Santa Croce, also of undeniably gifted, but who have taken it into their heads to reform art, starting from the principle that effect is everything. Have you 1862 4). (Fig. We are hard put to reconcile the popular notion ever met someone who shows you his snuff-box and insists that in of the macchia as a proto-impressionistic, patchlike mode of the grain and various stainings [macchie] of the wood he can execution with the stylistic qualities displayed by these paint­ recognize a small head, a little man, or a tiny horse? And the ings or by a work like Vincenzo Cabianca's Florentine Story­ small head, the little man, and the tiny horse are all there in those tellers of the Fourteenth Century (Fig.